Breaking the Ice (11 page)

“Why does Braedon need you to watch his guards?” Mom asks. A line appears across her forehead. “Besides, it's too cold in here. You have to get warm or you'll pull something.”

I look at the clock. Ten more minutes left in the session. Plenty of time for me to stretch and run back before Braedon gets off the ice.

Mom and I find an empty corner in the hallway housing the locker rooms and offices. All down the corridor, skaters are stretching and walking through their programs. I pull my skates off and race through my stretching routine.

“Mom,” I say as I hold my right foot over my head in a Biellmann position. “Can I stay to watch the dance competition? It should be done in plenty of time for dinner.”

Mom beams. “Of course you can. Maybe I should stay too.”

“Oh, no, you don't have to.” I try to cross my fingers, but that's kind of hard when you're holding your foot over your head.

“Well . . .” Mom studies me for a couple of seconds. Something flickers across her face, but before I have time to figure it out, she smiles again. “That's fine. Now, be sure you study those high-level dance teams closely. You can learn a lot from their edging and how they hold themselves. Just wear some warm clothes. And take this blanket.” She hands me the patchwork quilt she usually sits on to watch me skate. “Dad and I will check into the hotel and be back to get you around five thirty.”

“Thanks, Mom! See you later.” I do one last stretch, find my shoes in the locker room, and take off back to the ice.

Chapter Nineteen

“How did you get a
whole locker room to yourself?” Miyu asks. The place is practically deserted. I spot a couple of girls off to the left, but that's it.

“I swear it wasn't like this before.” I twirl the combination to my locker and pull out my jeans and sweater.

“Are you staying to watch Samantha and Tom?” Miyu leans against the wall and twists her silver necklace.

“Yeah,” I say, kind of surprised. “Are you?”

“Of course,” she says.

“I didn't think you liked dance.” I toss my cold, damp
practice dress onto the bench in the middle of the aisle and pull on my warm clothes.

“I don't, but I like to cheer for my friends.”

“That's really nice.”

Miyu shrugs. “We all do it. It's a club camaraderie thing.”

I think back to competitions, but I can't remember hearing loud cheers for Fallton skaters. I was probably too wrapped up in my own skating. I barely even hear my own parents rooting for me when I skate, never mind who's cheering for anyone else. “That's kind of cool.”

“It is. We never did that at my old club,” Miyu says.

“Mine either.” I reach into my locker and pull out a plastic grocery store bag.

“What's that?” Miyu asks.

“I like to make things for people before big competitions. I used to make something for every girl at Ridgeline, but I'm not there, so . . .” My face goes warm. Am I being silly, making beaded bracelets for girls I've only known a few weeks?

Miyu peers into the bag. “You
made
those?”

“Um . . . yeah.” I hand her a red-and-yellow one with a little gold
M
charm dangling from it. “You don't have to wear it if you don't like it.”

“Are you kidding? This is awesome. And you made it in
my favorite colors!” Miyu slides the bracelet over her hand and holds it up in the light. “Thank you.”

I grin. “I'm glad you like it.”

“Knock-knock! Everyone decent?” Braedon's voice sounds through the crack in the locker room door. He doesn't really wait for an answer but shoves the door open and walks right on in.

“You can't be in here!” one of the girls across the room yells at him.

“Relax,” Braedon says with a grin.

“Oh my God, he is seriously crazy,” Miyu says to me. She points at the door and glares at Braedon. “Out! Now.”

“Who died and made you boss of the skating rink?” he says. “Kaitlin, c'mon. Junior short dance is starting.”

“Let's go. It's the only way to make him get out of here,” Miyu says as she picks up the bag of bracelets for me.

I glance at the wrinkled Fallton jacket stuffed under my skate bag at the bottom of the locker. Miyu and Braedon are wearing theirs. I grab the shiny blue sleeve, stuff Mom's quilt into its place, and slam the door shut. Then I scurry after Miyu, who's grabbed Braedon's arm and is hauling him toward the door.

“Nice to meet you!” he shouts at the girls across the room. They just give him dirty looks.

“What is wrong with you?” Miyu demands as soon as we're out the door.

“What's wrong with you, Miss Uptight?” he says.

“You don't see anything wrong with barging into a girls' locker room?”

“Not really. Hey, you guys want something to drink?” Braedon detours toward the concession stand.

Miyu shakes her head. “I'm going out to the rink.”

“Kaitlin?” Braedon asks.

I look back and forth between them. Miyu rolls her eyes at me. I kind of wish she'd be a tiny bit nicer to Braedon. “I'll see you out there,” she says.

“What's your poison? Coke? Diet Coke? Hot chocolate?” Braedon asks when we reach the counter.

“Hot chocolate.” I pull a five-dollar bill out of my jeans pocket, but Braedon's already passed money to the cashier.

“I'll pay,” he says. “Since I'm so embarrassing and all, it's the least I can do.”

“You're not embarrassing. Nothing happened.” I'm really glad he didn't walk in five minutes before, when I was in the middle of changing, though. I seriously would've died of embarrassment.

“You're much cooler than Miyu,” Braedon says as he hands me a cup.

“Thank you for the drink.” I wrap my hands around the warm Styrofoam and walk with him out to the ice.

Braedon points to the top of the bleachers. “There they are,” he says.

I follow his finger and do a double take at how many Fallton people are up there. It's practically everyone who isn't skating in the next hour and doesn't have practice scheduled on the other ice surface. Even Addison's sitting at the very top with her legs crossed, looking as bored as can be. I can't believe they're all here to cheer on two other skaters when they could be resting for their own performances. Miyu was right—this is really cool.

I ignore the voice in the back of my head that says I'm a little disappointed that it's not just me and Braedon. At least I get to sit next to him. Miyu's behind me, showing off her bracelet.

“Kaitlin made one for everybody.” She hands me the bag as Jessa examines the little
M
on Miyu's bracelet.

“You did? That is
so
nice,” Jessa says when I hand her a bracelet. “You're really good at this.”

“Thanks.” No one at Ridgeline ever got this excited about anything I made them. Even those personalized water bottles, which took forever to get just right. I give a bracelet to all the girls—except Samantha, who's competing.

Addison holds hers like it's a rotten egg.

“Um, I made it with black-and-white beads to match your dress,” I tell her.

“Hmm.” She rolls it onto her wrist, but doesn't say anything else.

“So where's mine?” Braedon asks.

“I only made them for the girls. I'm sorry.”

He punches me lightly on the shoulder. “I'm just kidding.”

The first group of dancers end their warm-up and the competition starts. I'm admiring the first girl's gorgeous dress when Addison leans forward from the end of the row above, the little silver
A
on her bracelet catching the light.

“Hey, pay attention, Kaitlin. They're doing a tango. A
good
tango,” she says with a smirk.

I pretend I don't hear her, and watch the couple on the ice. She's right, though. These dancers could tango me into oblivion. The girl is giving her partner smoldering looks, ones that could melt the ice right beneath her feet. How does she do that? I grip my hot chocolate and study her face.

“Are you cold?” Braedon asks, looking at my hands clenched around the warm cup. “Here, take my jacket.” Before I can say anything, he's draped his club jacket around my shoulders.

I'm sure I look even weirder wearing two bright blue ­Fallton jackets, but I don't say anything. Guys in romantic movies are always giving girls their coats. I can't believe how sweet Braedon is.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Addison's leaned forward again and is throwing daggers at me with her eyes. I give her a little smile. It might be really mean, but I decide I like making Addison jealous.

“There they are!” Miyu points at the ice.

“Samantha Young and Tom Batinsky, representing ­Fallton Figure Skating Club in Fallton, Michigan!” The announcer's voice echoes through the rink, and everyone around me erupts into cheers.

Everyone from Fallton, that is.

“Skate great!” the whole group choruses before bursting out into wolf whistles and clapping. I join in, clapping my hands and yelling, “Woo!” Practically everyone in the rink turns to look at us except Samantha and Tom. They look deadly serious, completely in character before the music has even started.

“They should win,” Jessa says as they do one last crazy-­looking lift and strike an ending pose. “That was perfect.”

I nod. I've never seen anything like it. Their skating was
beautiful, and their lifts and dance spins were so different from everyone else's.

“Did you
see
that last lift?” a girl sitting off to my left says to her friend. I glance toward them and recognize her from my practice session. “What was that?”

“A total disaster. And that spin where he was leaning backward? So weird.”

I'm clenching my hands so hard that my nails are digging into my palms. Everyone else from Fallton is talking, so I don't think they even heard. But Braedon did.

“How can they be so mean? It was a great dance,” I whisper to him.

“Told you. Everyone already has their minds made up about us. Doesn't matter how well we do. Tom and ­Samantha could've gone out there and skated like Meryl Davis and ­Charlie White,” he says, referring to the Olympic gold medal­ist ice dancers. “And they'd still be saying all kinds of rude things.”

“It's not fair.” I'm thinking about those moms who were talking about Braedon earlier. And me. And about how I didn't say anything. It's like a fire is rising inside of me and is bursting to get out.

I want to say something now.

“Don't.” Braedon grabs my arm just as I'm about to turn around. “It's not worth it, and you won't change their minds.”

I let out a breath and face the ice again.

“Besides,” he says, “you have bigger things to think about. Like proving yourself to the judges tomorrow.”

The anger disappears. He's right. I have to stay focused. This is supposed to be my big comeback—a new program, a new style, a new Kaitlin. I
have
to do well here to cement my chances for Regionals. I can't give the judges any reason to score me the way they did at Praterville, which means I have to be perfect. And keep my mouth shut.

Chapter Twenty

“Everyone's so nice. Everyone from
Fallton, I mean,” I say to Miyu after the last of the junior dance teams skates. We're headed toward the locker room, while Braedon and everyone else stayed to watch a couple of the younger dancers in the intermediate division.

“I know. It's so different from other clubs.” Miyu brushes her hand across a gorgeous yellow dress hanging near a vendor's table. “Hey, want to check out the dresses after tomorrow's qualifying round? It'll take our minds off the competition.”

“Sure.” We squeeze past girls stretching in the hallway,
and I push open the door to my locker room. “Hang on and let me get my stuff, and I'll walk with you to get yours.”

Miyu follows me in, then stops short. “What is that?”

“What?”

“In front of your locker. Is that your dress?”

My eyes dart across the room to the bench in front of the locker I claimed. My black practice dress is balled up on the bench, surrounded by stray bits of glitter and discarded hangers. “Oh, yeah. I guess I left it out.”

Miyu shakes her head and runs across the room. I'm wondering what the big deal is when she holds up the dress. A giant round hole is cut right out of the middle of it. Miyu's face peers through from the other side.

“How—what—who—” My hands are clammy, and blood is rushing in my ears.

“I
told
you not to leave anything out,” Miyu says as she hands me the dress.

I run my fingers around the hole. The cut is jagged, like whoever it was did it in a hurry. “But why?”

“They hate us. Did you bring something else to wear to practice in the morning? If not, you can borrow my extra dress.”

“Yeah, I have some pants.” I wad up the dress and throw
it into the nearest trash can, on top of someone's half-eaten stinky tuna sandwich. “That's just so . . . mean.”

“I know,” Miyu says quietly. “Will your mom be mad?”

I shrug. No way will I tell her the truth. She'd complain to every competition official she could find. I'm glad I remembered to put her quilt in my locker. “I'll just tell her it tore or I lost it or something. At least it wasn't my competition dress. I can't believe I left it there.”

“We were in such a hurry to get Braedon out of here, you probably just forgot.” Miyu makes a face, like Braedon cut the hole himself.

“It's not his fault,” I say as I get the rest of my stuff out of my locker.

“Sure. It's never his fault.”

I don't say anything else, but I can't see how Miyu can pin this on Braedon. He was just being funny. He's not responsible for some awful girl cutting up my dress.

I have another good practice in the morning—this time wearing my black over-the-heel skating pants and a black top under my club jacket. No one says anything about the jacket, and I breathe a little easier—about that, at least. Miyu, Addison, and I all make it through the qualifying round—barely.

Miyu and I kill time by checking out the dresses for sale in the lobby, but neither one of us is as into it as we'd like to be. My stomach is a mess of nerves until it's time to get ready for the real competition—the championship round. Then I relax into the ritual of putting on my dress and letting Mom redo my hair and makeup.

“Hold still, Kaitlin, or I'll poke your eye out.” Mom holds the eyeliner pencil dangerously close to my right eye.

Once I asked Mom why I have to wear so much makeup, and she said that if I didn't wear it, I'd be all pale and washed out on the ice. Then I asked her if I could buy some lip gloss for real life, and she said only if it's the clear kind. I'm sure this makes all kinds of sense to Mom.

Someone squeezes by and bumps my left side. The eyeliner pencil jerks up just a fraction. Mom purses her lips and lets out a frustrated sound. She puts the pencil down and picks up a bottle of makeup remover and a cotton ball.

“Is it almost done?” I ask as she pats my eyelid.

“Be patient. Beauty takes effort. And I'm trying something different from how you looked in qualifying.”

I try to hold still as she finishes. After swiping on some mascara, Mom sends me to the mirror.

I weave through the crowd of skaters and moms to the
mirror over the sinks. I have to stand on my tiptoes to peer between the heads of two other girls. I finally catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Or what I think is myself. I barely look like me. My light brown hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, and I have this gorgeous red flower tucked into it. My brown eyes are ringed in black eyeliner and mascara, and my lips are bright red. I look at least five years older than I am. Which is weird and cool at the same time.

Miyu pushes past two younger girls and squeezes in beside me, wearing the pretty emerald-green dress she had on at Praterville. “I still can't get over how different that is from your
Swan Lake
costume,” she says. “It's insane in here. Where were all these people yesterday?”

I tug on the skirt of the red-and-black dress Samantha gave me. It makes me feel really . . . bright. Like people will turn their heads just to see me walk down the hallway. I thought I might feel more comfortable after wearing it once today, but I don't. “At least it fits.”

“It does more than fit,” Miyu says as she examines her face in the mirror. “It looks really good.”

For a hand-me-down dress, it really does fit okay—especially after the seamstress took the hem up. “It just isn't me,” I say.

Miyu eyes me in the mirror. “Did you tell Greg that?”

“No. I promised him I'd make this program work. Besides, he'd say I have to get into character. You know, flirt with the bleachers, or
be
the tango, or something.”

“Kaitlin! Your group is next for warm-up!” Mom shouts over the din of everyone else talking and laughing.

I'm sure my face matches the color of my dress now. You'd think I'd be used to Mom embarrassing me all the time.

“See you out there,” I say to Miyu. I rush back to Mom as best I can without tripping over anyone's outstretched legs. I clear a spot to sit down and put my skates on. Mom grabs my emergency bag in case something awful happens—like a broken lace during warm-up or a last-minute music malfunction. Then I make sure that everything is in my locker this time and follow Mom toward the ice.

As we thread our way through the vendors and skaters, my heart creeps up into my throat. How will the judges react to my new program when it's up against the best skaters in my division? What if my flirty tango faces just make everyone laugh?

“There you are,” Greg says as we reach the doors to the ice. “They're about to call your warm-up.” We push through the doors. A cool blast from the ice mixed with Zamboni fumes
hits my face. My eyes water a bit from the cold. Mom holds out my jacket, and I stuff my arms into it, thankful for the warmth. Skating dresses are designed to look good, not to keep the skater from freezing. I shove my black-and-purple-striped gloves onto my hands.

Mom leaves to join the other parents in the bleachers, and it's just me and Greg, surrounded by everyone else in my group. I wave at Miyu, who's standing with Karilee closer to the ice.

“Remember your warm-up?” Greg asks me.

“Two laps of Russian stroking, footwork, jumps easiest to hardest, and then spins,” I recite.

“Will the following skaters please take the ice for their warm-up,” the announcer's voice crackles over the PA system. “Ellery Goodwin, Yasmine Patel, Gemma Abbott . . .”

I don't hear the rest of the names, not even my own. I'm already on the ice, moving as fast as I can with the other girls in my group. Hildy always said that the judges start marking you unofficially in the warm-up. So you can't slack off. I hold my head up and my back straight as I pass the judges' table. My fingers tingle with nerves and excitement, and I'm already a little out of breath. I have to calm down or I'll end up passing out in the middle of the ice.

I finish the second lap, run through my footwork, and scout out a free spot to jump. I make it through all my jumps and spins, and Greg gives me a thumbs-up. The warm-up feels like it's over before it even began.

“How'd it go?” I ask Miyu as we glide toward the entrance to the ice.

She's flushed and out of breath. “Not good. Everything was messy.”

I squeeze her arm. “My old coach always said that a bad warm-up meant a really good competition skate.”

“I hope,” Miyu says.

Just as we reach the rubber mats, Ellery swoops in front of us.

“Nice dress, Kaitlin,” she says. Then she raises her eyebrows at me.

I can't figure out if that's a compliment or not. “Thanks?”

Greg and Karilee herd us into the lobby behind almost everyone else in our group. Karilee gives Miyu some last-­minute instructions—something about becoming one with the ice. Miyu nods intently, like she totally gets what Karilee is saying.

“Kaitlin, focus on the music, on the emotion, just like we practiced. Don't worry about the jumps. You've got better
elements than all the other girls out there. You just need to let the audience in,” Greg says.

I nod and say, “Okay,” but I can't seem to keep my attention on Greg. Not when Ellery and Peyton are standing right behind him, pointing to his Skating Sensation jacket and giggling. I know the show hasn't been around for years and it had things like skaters dressed as elephants, but I don't get what's so funny.

“Greg! I need to talk to you.” Addison appears from the crowd, dress and makeup on, but still wearing her sneakers. Her mom trails behind her. “I can't do the combo jump at the beginning of my program. I need to—”

“Not now. We'll talk after Kaitlin's skate.” Greg turns back to me.

Addison glares at me. “But I have to figure this out
now
. It can't wait.”

“Yes, it can. There's another group between Kaitlin's and yours. That's plenty of time.” Greg gives her a stern look, and then starts in again on how I need to listen to the music.

Addison turns in a huff and stomps back toward the locker rooms.

“Just wait until you win . . . ,” her mom says, her voice trailing off as they're swallowed by the crowd.

I'm trying to pay attention to Greg's pep talk, but Ellery and Peyton are re-enacting the showdown with Addison. If I didn't know they were really making fun of Fallton, it would've been funny watching Ellery huff and puff as an exaggerated Addison. Hildy's standing off to the side, talking to Ellery's mom. I wonder if Hildy will watch me skate.

“Let's go, you're up next,” Greg says.

I snap my attention back to him.

“Good luck,” Miyu says as Greg and I walk toward the ice.

The skater before me finishes her program with a flourish and takes her bows. I step onto the ice while I wait for my name to be called.

My stomach feels funny, almost like I could throw up. I do a little backspin near the boards while Greg gives me last-minute instructions.

“Be strong and confident. Feel the tango. Really feel it, like we practiced,” he says.

I still have no idea what he means by that, but I nod and take a sip of water. The other girl has finished her bows and glides by me on her way off the ice.

“Don't fall down,” she whispers.

Greg glares at her.

My heart beats even faster. Is it possible for a twelve-year-old to have a heart attack? Miyu and the others were right. Everyone seems to hate us, and for no reason at all.

“Use that anger,” Greg says. “Put it into your tango.”

Easy for him to say.

“Please welcome Kaitlin Azarian-Carter,” the announcer says in a booming voice. “Representing Fallton Figure Skating Club.”